25. Cara
Chapter twenty-five
Cara
When I opened my eyes, I quickly realized Ellis was already awake. He was standing in the kitchen nook, bare-chested and bare feet, wearing only jeans, and he looked so damn handsome that I was ready to jump his bones again straightaway. Of course, that wasn’t possible. Riley slept in on the weekend, like all preteen boys, but he would wake up eventually, and he’d better not catch us in the middle of the act.
I stretched, enjoying the warmth of the blankets, which still smelled like Ellis, a little longer. “As much as I am enjoying the view, but you better put a shirt on.”
“Because of Riley?” he asked.
I nodded. “We need to look unsuspicious. Maybe it’s better if you’re gone by the time he wakes up.”
“I’m in the middle of making coffee for us,” he said. “And we need to tell him eventually, anyway.”
I sat up, shrugging off the blankets, and reached for my bathrobe. “What, that we’re together?”
“So we are? Together?” Ellis smiled, and as usual, his smile was enough to make me weak in the knees.
I got up and took the steaming pot of coffee from his hand. “Lets start over. Rebuild what we once had.”
He wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head. “I would like that.”
“And your father?” As much as I wanted to believe my troubles with Carlisle Benton were over, I was still on edge about the situation. Had Ellis really defeated him, or would his father find a way to punish us?
Ellis seemed more confident than me on the matter. “He can write me out of his will if he wants to. Cut me off. Never speak my name again. I don’t care. All I care about is you and Riley.”
“He wields a lot of power. If he’s blacklisting you, it might be very difficult for you to find another job.”
“He’s powerful, but he also has many enemies. I’m sure they would be delighted to give me a job just to spite him. And I have my trust fund to fall back on if everything else fails.”
“Right, the trust fund. But how much money is in there? Is it enough to support you indefinitely?”
“I’m not even sure about the exact amount, but it’s an eight-figure number.”
I whistled through my teeth. “Lucky you.”
“Lucky us. Your life of financial struggle is over. I will make sure of that. You can have all the luxuries you want.”
I sighed. “It would be nice to have a bit of a cushion, but I don’t want luxuries. That’s not me, and I don’t want Riley to end up as some spoiled rich kid.”
“Like I am?” He grinned, but a spark of hurt showed in his eyes.
“That’s not what I meant. Just keep those purse strings tight, okay?”
He put the coffeepot down, took my face in both hands, and looked me in the eyes. “Cara, you are a great mom. You raised our child into a wonderful young man, and you will continue to do so. All I want is to be part of your and his life. I won’t meddle, and I won’t steamroll. You’ve known him twelve years longer than me, so I will follow your lead.”
I nodded. “I understand you want the best for us. For him. We just need to be careful how we go about it. With all that business with the ranch, he’s not your biggest fan right now.”
“Careful is fine, but we need to tell him soon.”
“That I have a millionaire boyfriend?” I tried to distract him from the topic with a joke, but Ellis remained steadfast.
“No. He’s old enough to know the truth. We need to tell him that I am his father.”
The door to Riley’s bedroom flew open. He was already dressed although his hair was still unkempt.
“ What ?” His face showed pure shock, but before I could say anything, shock morphed into betrayal. “He’s… he’s my father?”
“Let me explain,” I begged him.
When I took a step toward Riley, he backed away. “I knew it! I knew you were keeping a secret from me.”
“I had my reasons.”
“How could you not tell me?”
“I was going to tell you. Soon.”
“But… this is about me. It wasn’t your secret to keep.”
“Riley, I promise. I only did it to keep you safe.”
He looked Ellis up and down with a grim expression. “And you? How long have you known?”
Ellis shot me a questioning glance, but I had no idea how to defuse the situation either.
“I had suspicions when I first saw you, but your mother confirmed it the day we visited the winter festival together.”
“So she kept it from you too?”
Ellis nodded silently.
Riley clenched his fists. “You kept him away from me all those years, Mom? All those times I cried about missing my dad, all you had to do was give him a phone call?”
“Sweety, I wish it were that simple, but—” I took another step toward him, arms outstretched, but he pushed past me.
“Don’t touch me!” he yelled. “I’m not talking to you ever again .”
With those words, he stormed off and threw the door shut behind himself. I wanted to run after him, but Ellis’s strong arm wrapped around my shoulder.
“Give him some space.”
I shrugged off Ellis’s hand and went after Riley, but when I rushed out the door, Riley was already on his bike, speeding away. I could never catch up with him on foot.
Ellis appeared behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. “I’m sure he’ll be back soon. Just give him a little time to process things and cool off.”
I pressed my lips together, trying to choke back my tears. “This is all my fault.”
He dragged me away from the door and toward the couch, gently pushing me to sit down. “You did what you thought was best for him. It was a difficult situation.”
I shook my head. “I should’ve been honest with him.”
“Hindsight is always 20/20. But just out of interest, what did you tell him when he asked about his father?”
I averted my gaze and exhaled. “Many different things over the years. When he was little, I told him his father was an adventurer in a foreign land or a spaceship captain on a mission to Mars. , I simply told him I didn’t know where his father was and how to reach him. Eventually, he just stopped asking. I know it was a question that still haunted him, but he’d given up looking for answers.”
Ellis sat down beside me and took my hand in his. “Where do you think he went?”
“Probably to Parker’s house. He’s been his best friend since preschool.”
“We’ll give it an hour or two. And if he hasn’t called by then, we’ll pick him up there, okay?”
I nodded hesitantly. My mom instinct screamed at me to go after my child, to comfort him through this, but the rational part of my brain knew Ellis was right. Riley needed some space.
Ellis did his best to keep me distracted. He made breakfast for us, but I pushed my plate away after two bites, too worried to get anything down.
After about an hour and a half without a call or text message from my son, I called it quits.
“I’m going to Parker’s house and bringing him home. You can wait here.”
“I’m coming with you. Let’s take my car.”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll take care of it.”
Ellis stood up. “Cara, he’s my son, too. I’m coming with you. We’ll talk to him together.”
The drive to Parker’s house took only ten minutes, but I had to sit on my hands to keep myself from biting my fingernails off.
When we approached the front door of the pristine blue craftsman house, I had the conversation with Riley planned out in my head. This time, I would do it the right way.
We rang the doorbell, and moments later, Parker’s mother, Tiffany, opened up. Her gaze wandered over Ellis for a moment. Then she leaned slightly sideways to check out Ellis’s car, parked at the street curb, clearly intrigued.
“Cara,” she finally said, “what can I do for you?”
“Sorry to bother you, Tiffany. I’m looking for Riley.”
Tiffany dragged her eyes away from the fancy silver Maybach and frowned. “Sorry, he’s not here.”